Environment Canada suggested that its minister, Peter Kent, should make “useful” comments about global warming impacts in the country. (Getty Images)

OTTAWA – Environment Canada has offered concrete examples to help its minister make “useful” public comments about the reality of global warming in the country.

The department gave Peter Kent the advice in a 33-page slide show presentation that highlights facts and impacts, linked to warming temperatures, that range from billions of dollars in costs to Canadian taxpayers to the loss of tens of thousands of jobs.

“In external discussions and speeches regarding the government of Canada’s action on climate change, it may be useful to present concrete examples of climate-change impacts occurring in Canada,” former deputy minister Paul Boothe told Kent in a memorandum, dated March 5, 2012. It summarized the presentation, which was released to Postmedia News through access to information legislation.

The slide show, complete with charts, photographs and statistics taken from scientific literature and government reports including recent research by the National Round Table on the Environment and the Economy, was packaged in a manner similar to the public global-warming presentations delivered by former U.S. vice-president Al Gore.

“For impacts already occurring, there is a high likelihood that these trends will continue as the planet warms,” the presentation said. “Some changes have happened much faster than predicted (i.e. Arctic ice).”

Some key impacts highlighted in the slideshow include:

- An average temperature increase of 1.6 degrees Celsius across Canada compared to a global increase of 0.7 degrees Celsius, and a 2.1-degree-Celsius increase in the Canadian north from 1948 to 2010;

- Combined spending of $1.2 billion by the governments of Canada, British Columbia and Alberta to respond to the mountain pine beetle epidemic that is resulting in the loss of 8,000 jobs and the closure of 16 lumber mills by 2018;

- Economic losses of $5.8 billion and 41,000 jobs lost because of droughts in Alberta and Saskatchewan in 2001 and 2002 that have affected the agriculture industry;

- A 20-day annual increase since the 1950s in the average number of days with rain;

- The year 2010 was the warmest on record with average temperatures three degrees Celsius above normal; it was also the 14th consecutive year with above-normal temperatures;

- Massive Arctic ice melting is opening the door to a doubling of cruise ship voyages and new opportunities for gas exploration; it’s also opening the door for transmission of diseases across oceans and species;

- Melting permafrost creating risks to waste containment and resulting in a 130-kilometre retreat in the southern limit of Quebec’s permafrost, as well as up to $50 million in costs to the province of Manitoba in a season to airlift fuel and food that could not be transported by ground;

- Lower water levels in the Great Lakes, forcing ships to lighten their cargo, causing multimillion-dollar decreases in business shipping volumes, as well as reducing hydroelectricity outputs and compromising wetlands that filter contaminants and absorb excess storm water;

- Record costs of up to $400 million to fight forest fires in a single season in British Columbia, with the three most expensive seasons recorded over the last decade;

- Hundreds of millions in damage in recent years from extreme weather and rain events that have affected Toronto, Atlantic Canada and other regions;

Kent, who has not used these points in recently posted speeches on his department’s website, was not available for comment about them.

The NDP’s deputy leader and environment critic, Megan Leslie, praised Environment Canada officials for suggesting that Kent should speak more about the reality that Canadians are paying a hefty price because of climate change.

“I don’t know what the minister of environment does,” said Leslie. “I don’t find him particularly useful on this file.”

The Pembina Institute, an Alberta-based environmental policy research group, described Kent’s approach as a missed opportunity.

“The experts at Environment Canada put together an excellent toolkit of real-life examples and scientific data about the serious impacts of global warming,” said Clare Demerse, the institute’s director of federal policy. “They asked their minister to tell that story to Canadians, but Peter Kent hasn’t taken their advice: his recent speeches contain virtually nothing from that memo.”

A separate memo to Kent from Boothe on Nov. 3, 2011 also highlighted a review of global temperatures by university researchers in Berkeley, California, that confirmed the planet is heating up.

This memo dismissed recent attacks, based on stolen emails, suggesting that climate scientists were conspiring to manipulate their research. Boothe’s memo turned these allegations into a footnote that said the accusations were investigated and dismissed since there was no evidence of scientific misconduct.

Boothe left Environment Canada in July to accept a senior position as a director of the University of Western Ontario’s business school.

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